The Gers square off with their bitter Old Firm rivals at Hampden Park tomorrow in a game which should tell us how far the club has come under Mark Warburton, who took charge last summer.

Early signs indicate that Rangers are making giant leaps under the ex-Brentford boss, who secured promotion with ease as his side ran away with the Scottish Championship to seal their top-flight return, while they also won the Petrofac Training Cup at the national stadium last week by smashing Peterhead 4-0 in the final.

Tomorrow's last-four clash is the second since 2012 - and the first in 14 months, when Celtic beat them 2-0 in a League Cup semi-final which appeared to show a sizeable gap in terms of quality between both sides.

But it is expected to be a lot closer this time around, and Deila acknowledged as much. When asked if they had improved, he responded via Sky Sports: "Yeah. We will see on Sunday, then you will get the real answer. Of course, this year they won the league and they didn't do that last year. They have taken a step up.

"I think we are quite the same. If you see in the league, if we win the rest of the games we will end up with almost the same amount of points. We have put ourselves in a good situation there and we were also in the semi-final in the League Cup.

"What has been disappointing is what we have done in Europe. That is something we want to do better with next year."

Shane Callaghan

Shane is a Dublin-based sports writer who swapped the football pitch for the press box upon learning that he was better with a pen than with a round bit of leather. Prior to joining HITC, Shane enjoyed spells with Sports Mole and Goal.com among others, while he was also club reporter for Irish football club Drogheda United.